It’s Been So Long Since I Last Posted, I’m Now Telling You about Buying Peppers

Do you know it’s been exactly one month since I last blogged. In the middle of December, I was eating tomatoes. Now, in the middle of January, I could have purchased some tomatoes but instead went for yellow bell peppers, lettuce and two cucumbers. What’s so difficult about being a locavore in the winter?

Just try is what I tell people looking to eat more local. Or local is where you find it. And what I found when I made, a late in the morning, visit to the Faith in Place winter farmer’s market in Oak Park last Saturday was a table brimming with bell peppers, green and yellow; several big bags of lettuces, one cucumber, and a host of tomatoes. I grabbed the cuke. Filled a bag with salad. Took three yellow peppers. Squeezed the tomatoes enough to know n0t. Paid. Paid $9. Paid really no more than I would have paid for such produce in the summer. Left thinking I had that last cucumber, by the way, but it turned out they had many more. I paid one more dollar for another winter special. I got a nice haul to supplement our other winter fare.

Rainbow Harvest of Channahon, Illinois produces these crops using hydroponic, indoor production. Sneer. In fact hold that sneer for a bit because I cannot fully address your sneer, having put all my produce away for another day. I accept that hydroponics may lack a certain veggie vigor indicative of what makes us locavores in the first place, but hey, it’s local. It’s winter, and when you are looking for a cucumber, a tomato, a bell pepper, you are often getting an indoor grown, hydro thing regardless. Might as well get it from a farmer you can meet. Listen, sometimes we eat turnips. Sometimes we eat cucumbers. As long as it comes from around here, it tastes good to us. (Which is not also to say, that the big bag of honeybell tangerines my Brother-in-law recently brought us from Florida don’t also taste good to us.)

I’ll catch you up on the inventory well within the next month, probably in the next day or two. For now, know that our Tomato Mountain CSA ended not too much after that last post. It has kept us well stocked in turnips, radishes, spinach, and potatoes. On top of that, we have good supplies of other stuff. We’re getting by just fine, thank you very much. I mean we just picked up lettuces, bell peppers, and cukes.